illy’s cosy container cafe

Artist/architect Adam Kalkin has transformed standard shipping containers into living quarters. His Quick House can be used for different circumstances, from disaster-relief housing to luxury dwellings and for promotional purposes. Italian espresso company Illy has used the Quick House at the 52nd Venice Biennale to provide visitors a space to relax and to enjoy their complimentary espresso.
With the push of a button, the Illy house opens in 90 seconds like a flower and transforms from a compact container into a fully furnished and functional space with a kitchen, dining room, bathroom, bedroom, living room and library. All materials used were recyclable or recycled. Between November 28 and December 29, 2007, New York holiday shoppers have a chance to sit down and relax in Kalkin’s creation as Illy will install the temporary Push Button cafe in the Time Warner Centre.
Kalkin’s concept can also be used for luxury dwellings, as pictured above. Seeing this, I wouldn’t mind living a container like that!

I love the concept of putting unexpected things in standardized containers of different types. It’s just so practical, since there is an extensive industry in place for shipping them.
Google makes shipping containers with a fully fledged server park in them, with a standardized interface, so that they can easily just ship out a server container to where they need it, and there they just have to connect it to power and networking, and it’s set. So much easier than stowing large amounts of computers for shipping, then when they arrive unpack everything, connect it together and so on.

in the netherlands, containers are used to house students in the larger cities, where there is a great lack of housing. They build in windows, stack the lot together and you have reasonable luxury for a student. One container contains a small kitchen, a small bathroom and a living/bedroom.